A conventional vehicle air conditioning apparatus includes a refrigerant circuit in which a compressor, a heat source side heat exchanger, an expansion device, and a load side heat exchanger are connected by pipes, and a control unit that performs switching between a heating operation and a defrosting operation of the heat source side heat exchanger. In the defrosting operation of the heat-source side heat exchanger, the control unit circulates refrigerant in the refrigerant circuit in a direction opposite to that in the heating operation (see, for example, Patent Literature 1).